The First "First Friday" of 2006-2007

Join Rob Stothart (pictured at left), other Northwest College faculty, and students as they read from their work at the first First Friday Reading of 2006-2007. The group will meet at noon in the Hinckley Library amphitheater.

First Friday Readings occur at noon of the first Friday of each month during the academic year as part of the Northwest College Writers Series. See you there!

The Evolution of Speech Balloons

nHumanities loves graphic novels and the less sophisticated comics from which they sprang. We agree with the late Louise M. Rosenblatt, who held the position--early and radically--that reading comics was actually good for children.

Consequently, we were gratified recently to find that Andy's Early Comics Archive has an online exhibit tracing the evolution of the speech balloon. The precursors of speech balloons--speechbands, flags, scrolls or sheets of paper--appear in early art. Consider this example which pictures the Earl of Moray, who was assassinated (1591, anon, English) :

Department of Too Cute Office Supplies

As readers of nHumanities know, we're nuts for office supplies. So we greet this new little guy with joy. As the supplier says, "The action of sharpening a pencil also winds-up the clockwork mechanism that makes him walk along." You can get yours at Hawkin's Bazaar.

Cupcake Cars or Defiled Muffins?

Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing reports a brouhaha at the Burning Man Festival. Apparently, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the festival's incredibly cute cupcake cars were run by polluting gas-powered scooters. Not so! counters members of the Cupcake Corners--the cars are electric.

You can read the whole amusing blog entry at Boing Boing.

The Mind is a Metaphor

We like to refer to the mind as a computer or a steel trap or--when we're feeling forgetful--a sieve. But it was not always so.

Brad Pasanek, of the Annenberg Center for Communication (University of Southern California), has put together The Mind is a Metaphor: A Database of Eighteenth-Century Metaphors of Mind. The database is "a scholarly study of the metaphors and root-images appealed to by the novelists, poets, dramatists, essayists, philosophers, belle lettrists, preachers, and pamphleteers of the eighteenth century."

Pasanek divides his work into entries which categorize the metaphors according to "fancy's coinage, reason's empire, the court of conscience, strangers within, the mind's eye, a soldier's 'mettle' or 'metal,' and so forth." He reports that "even the most unlikely metaphors have careers: the mind is once likened to meat rotating on a smoke-jack in the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus and then again in Tristram Shandy."

In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke said that the Understanding "searches after Truth, are a sort of Hawking and Hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great part of the Pleasure."

G. W. Leibniz invited the readers of The Principles of Philosophy, or, the Monadology to imagine a "machine whose structure makes it think, sense, and have perceptions" enlarged to the size of a mill, upon "inspecting its interior, we will only find parts that push one another, and we will never find anything to explain a perception."

Lost Early American Vocabulary

Eric Ferguson, who works with living history museums, wanted to spice the language of historical enactors with authentic early American phrases, so he turned to the 1830 memoirs of Joseph Plumb Martin, who fought in the American Revolution as an enlisted man.

Here are some of the forgotten gems he unearthed, demonstrating once again the fluidity of the English language. All page references are to Private Yankee Doodle, by Joseph Plumb Martin:

• The pinch of the game; the determining moment, the crucial point. "But the pinch of the game had not arrived yet . . ." (6).
• Graveled; perplexed. "And now I was completely graveled; my parents were too far off to obtain their consent . . ." (8).
• Mauger; despite. Appears to be a strong term. "I saw a simple incident which excited my risibility, mauger my fatigue" (16, 68).
• Pipe of wine; a large cask of about two hogsheads or 126 gallons (20).
• Cogitations; unpleasant thought. After being assigned to an unpleasant fatigue, "However, I kept my cogitations to myself" (22).
• Langrage; like grapeshot, except irregular in shape "The grapeshot and langrage flew merrily . . ." (35).
• The Pock; smallpox (66).
• Animalcule; microbe. "Had the animalcule of the itch been endowed with reason they would have quit their entrenchments . . ." (111).
• Raised his ideas; made him angry, aggressive. "This officer was a very mild man, but the old man had 'raised his idea' by abusing the soldiers, which he would not hear from anyone" (202).
• Fag end; last years, final part. ". . . many of the poor men who had spent their youthful . . . days in the hard service of their country, have been enabled to eke out the fag end of their lives too high for the groveling hand of envy . . ." (292).
• Obloquy; false accusation, malicious gossip (293).

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Private Yankee Doodle, by Joseph Plumb Martin, edited by George F. Scheer. Originally published in 1830. Little, Brown & Co, 1962. Eastern Acorn Press, 1988.

Survival in an Altoids Tin

While most back-to-school folk are contemplating their odds of survival in English Comp or Calc I, nHumanities would like you take a moment and consider your survival in a Wyoming emergency.

Field & Stream has given the matter some thought and provides instructions for a DIY survival kit contained in a pocket-sized Altoids tin. It might not help you much when you get lost in New York City, but when you get lost hunting this fall in Sunlight Basin, you'll be glad you have it.

The Essential Northwest College Website

Here are the top ten places on the Northwest College web site that every student (and employee) should use. All of them can be found via navigation from the home page or by using the web site's search function:

1. The Fall 2006 schedule of classes and syllabi
   
2. MyNWC Student Portal, which provides one-page access to the most vital student tools, including . . .
   • WebAdvisor--where students can check their class schedules, their GPAs, their transcripts, their financial accounts with the college, and more.
   • Blackboard Learning System, which is the software Northwest College uses for its online classes as well as to support face-to-face classes.
   • Smarthinking, access to online tutoring services--anytime, any place.
   • Northwest College Calendar, the day-to-day activities and deadlines on campus.
   • Campus Web Mail.
     
3. Hinckley Library, where you can search for books, conduct research for articles, and access reference works . . . all online.
   
4. The 2006-2007 Northwest College Catalog
5. Rob Koelling's Student's Guide to Northwest College
6. Scholarship opportunities
7. Information on how to Transfer from Northwest College
8. The Northwest Trail Online
9. The College Bookstore online
10. The Student Success Center, with access to . . .
    
• Project Succeed, a TRiO program that is free to over 160 eligible students.
  
• Free tutoring in all academic subjects.
• Disability Services.
• Career information and current job listings in the Big Horn Basin.
  

The college's web site includes much more information than these ten destinations. Take the time to explore the site and bookmark your favorites.

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Posting based on a presentation made by Dr. Robert W. Koelling, Jr.

View Vatican Virtually

Few of us will ever get to take an enjoyable tour of the famous Vatican Museums. Even if we get to Rome, the hordes of fellow tourists will detract from the experience. So here's a way to study the treasures of the Vatican: take a virtual tour.

The Vatican Museums web site offers both the collection online and online tours of the many museums.

(Pictured, Attic kylix with red figures attributed to the Oedipus Painter, approx. 480-470 BC, cat. 6541.)

Improve Your Computer Skills

Regardless of whether you're taking an online course, you will need good computer skills to make your life easier in college. One quick way to gain basic skills is the web site Learnthat, which provides quick, easy, free online tutorials.

At the web site, you can learn--among other things--how to Get Rid of Spyware, receive quick instruction on basic Microsoft Word features and tools, and find a List of Windows Keyboard Shortcuts.

Using the Internet Securely

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To their woe, students and other web users have learned that the internet is not a secure medium. Incautious use of some of the most popular social networking tools--such as Facebook or Myspace--can leave a person vulnerable. Last week's Newsweek highlighted this fact with the article Web of Risks, and About.com recommends you Treat Your Facebook Page Like a Resume (see links).

But other aspects of your internet use are insecure, too, such as your email which is vulnerable to snooping, cookies which track data from your computer, or your browsing history which reveals every website you've visited.

EPIC (the Electronic Privacy Information Center) provides a comprehensive Online Guide to Practical Privacy Tools. Among other things, these tools will help you

• encrypt email,
• surf anonymously,
• block popups,
• eliminate cookies,
• erase your files thoroughly,
• secure your passwords, and
  
• create firewalls.
  

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The photo green was originally uploaded by trAvelpig at Flickr.

Write Your Own Ticket

Literally.

The internet has brought us so many wonderful things -- email, easy access to data, and online generators, those great little bits of software that allows even the non-technical to create cool things.

Back in December of 2005 we posted an entry about Online Generators, and now we've run across another fine addition to the category: The Concert Ticket Generator. Now you, too, can be a rock star.

The High Cost of Poor Punctuation

It could be the most costly piece of punctuation in Canada.

A grammatical blunder may force Rogers Communications Inc. to pay an extra $2.13-million to use utility poles in the Maritimes after the placement of a comma in a contract permitted the deal's cancellation.

The controversial comma sent lawyers and telecommunications regulators scrambling for their English textbooks in a bitter 18-month dispute that serves as an expensive reminder of the importance of punctuation. (globeandmail.com)

At issue is the second comma in a sentence relating to a five-year contract the company made with Aliant Inc. to string cable on utility poles. The sentence says the contract "shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party."

Rogers meant the sentence to say that the contract could not be cancelled until the first five years had passed, thus freezing the price it had to pay per utility pole.

Aliant claims that the second comma means it could cancel the contract with one year's notice at any time, even during the first five years.

Sadly for Rogers, regulators with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission have sided on the side of good grammar by agreeing with Aliant. Rogers' price could rise from its fixed rate of $9.60 per utility pole to as high as $28.05 per pole.

PS You can find a nice set of links on grammar and usage put together by Richard Lederer at Verbivore.

I Scream, You Scream, But Wilhelm Really Screams

nHumanities is not revealing any trade secrets when it confesses that professors sometimes scream when they get student papers. Nor should it surprise anyone to learn that students sometimes scream when they receive those same papers back from their professors.

All of this screaming, however, can lead to enduring fame. Consider the case of Sheb Wooley, a voice actor who recorded a scream for the film Distant Drums in 1951 to accompany a man being eaten by an alligator. His scream has lived on for over 50 years and has been immortalized among sound editors as the Wilhelm Scream, named after "Pvt. Wilhelm," a character who emits the same scream in The Charge at Feather River (1953).

As a humorous homage, sound editors have used the Wilhelm Scream over and over again. You can hear it in the following Wilhelm Scream Compilation from YouTube:

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Another wonderful movie vocalization is the controversial Tarzan yell used in Johnny Weissmuller movies. While some folks claim sound editors created the yell by combining a number of clips, Weissmuller explained the yell was entirely his and had its roots in the yodeling of his Vienna youth.

Images from the Hubble Telescope

Simply beautiful. The Helix Nebula. Background information on this photo is available at Hubble.org.


Link: images.lunarpages.com (Note: clicking on a thumbnail at lunarpages will take you to hubble.org for background information on the image. Click on the links below each thumbnail for a larger version of the image.)

Google Adds Malware Warning

Google has added a warning to help protect your computer. According to the newsletter Spyware Info, "Visitors now are taken to a special warning page, when and if they click on a search result that leads to a malware-infested web site." (See reproduction of warning above, from jopemoro at Flickr.)

Last year, MSN Search took analogous steps to help protect users when it deleted the URLs of known malicious web sites from its search database. Many other popular search engines have yet to catch up.

Photo Ethics Update

Earlier we wrote about an altered Reuters photo of burning buildings in Beirut. The photo was taken by freelance photographer Adnan Hajj.

On Monday, August 7th, Reuters announced it was removing all 920 of Hajj's photos from its database after a second image was discovered to have been altered. Hajj changed a photo of an Israeli F-16 fighter, increasing the number of flairs it was dropping from one to three.

Reuters photo editor Tom Szlukoveny said, "There is no graver breach of Reuters standards for our photographers than the deliberate manipulation of an image."

Link: Reuters withdraws all photos by freelancer

Getting Good Grades in College

Top ten myths about grades in college, according to Lynn F. Jacobs and Jeremy S. Hyman's new book Professors' Guide to Getting Good Grades in College:

1. "It's bad to be a grade-grubber."
2. "Why try to get good grades? All I need is that piece of paper."
3. "College? This is going to be a cakewalk."
4. "E is for Effort."
5. "A is for Attendance."
6. "If only I suck up enough..."
7. "Grades are 100% subjective..."
8. "I'll never get good grades. I'm just not a good student."
9. "The professor could care less what grade I get."
10. "The professor will tell me all I need to know to get an A."

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Photo above titled nominal comfort, originally uploaded at Flickr by Orrin.

Photo Ethics, Part II

Recently we posted a blog on photo ethics and Charlotte Observer photographer Patrick Schneider, who was fired for enhancing the color in one of his photographs. Central to the debate over Schneider's action was whether enhancing the aesthetics of a photograph is the same as altering its content. The National Press Photographer's Association's Code of Ethics states "Do not manipulate images . . . in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects."

On Saturday, August 5th, the news agency Reuters released a photo of a bombing in Beirut which, to anyone with a critical eye, had clearly been altered.

Bloggers across the web quickly commented on the repeating patterns in the smoke and the repeating building under the lefthand column of smoke.

Much of the discussion focused on the crudeness of the alterations. The surprise was not that the photo had been altered, but that it had been done so badly and that no one at Reuters, which is a reputable news service, had caught it.

However, once Reuters realized what had happened, it pulled the photo and replaced it with the original image.

Ynet News, an Israeli English language web site, has an article entitled "Reuters admits altering Beirut photo" which offers a good overview of the story. (It is worth noting that the title of the article is somewhat misleading. Reuters admitted that the photo had been altered and that they had suspended the photographer pending an investigation into the changes which were made.)

Crop Circles Go 3D

In the lazy days of August, nHumanities' thoughts invariably stray to crop circles. And crop circles have taken on surprising new shapes and dimensions in England this summer. Wired News reports that the complicated crop circle pictured above appeared the first week of July near Ashbury, Oxfordshire.

Crop circle photographer Steve Alexander says, "Of late, the crop circles seem concerned with the moving of one dimension into another. . . . This is perhaps one of the most striking and overt expressions of that idea to date."

You can see galleries of 2006 crop circles at Wired News and Temporary Temples.

OMG! IM is OK?

According to a study from the University of Toronto, instant messaging is not ruining the English language, even though about 80% of all teens communicate via IM.

The study--titled "LOL for real! -- Instant Messaging and Teen Language"--finds that teens use instant messaging shorthand for only 2.4% of their online dialogue. The rest of the time, they are demonstrating syntactic range and flexibility. A press release from the University of Toronto says,

The study finds that instant messaging language does mirror patterns in speech, but that teens, surprisingly, are actually using a fusion of different levels of diction. Teens are using both informal forms that their English teachers would never allow, yet they also use formal writing phrasing that, if used in speech, would likely be considered "uncool."

"Everybody thinks kids are ruining their language by using instant messaging, but these teens' messaging shows them expressing themselves flexibly through all registers," says Tagliamonte. "They actually show an extremely lucid command of the language. We shouldn't worry."

Sali Tagliamonte and Derek Denis of the University of Toronto presented their study August 2 at the annual meeting of LACUS: Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States.

Advising Update: Good Online Resource

Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2006-2007 Edition

From the Scout Report review of the resource:

. . . Recently, the Department of Labor issued this tremendously useful Handbook in its online format, and for those looking for a new career, or those who are just starting out, it provides a wealth of helpful facts. Basic information for hundreds of jobs is made available in the Handbook, including such details as the training and education required for each position, along with expected earnings, future job prospects, and information on working conditions. Additionally, users can look at sections that provide suggestions on how to evaluate a job offer, and a section on the methodology used to prepare the Handbook.

Wikipedia & Wikiality

Some time ago, nHumanities took the position that Wikipedia needs to be used with caution because its entries do not represent the same depth or rigor that can be found through good research.

Wikipedia has come to our attention again this week, and we're ready to tweak our advice:

• use Wikipedia to get an overview of a topic but don't depend upon it as a research source in scholarly work;
• use critical thinking to judge the worth of any Wikipedia article; and
  
• trust Wikipedia's Featured Articles more than its run-of-the-mill entries.
  

Last week's New Yorker ran an article by Stacy Schiff titled "Know It All: Can Wikipedia Conquer Expertise?" In it, Schiff does a splendid job of explaining how the Wikipedia enterprise works. Wikipedia accumulated its one millionth article on March 1st, compared to Encyclopedia Britannica's 120,000 entries. Clearly, Wikipedia can claim to be more inclusive, especially on matters of current events or popular culture. (Want to know more about Britney Spears? Choose Wikipedia, not the EB.) Yet Wikipedia continues to face accuracy problems; as Schiff says, "What can be said for an encyclopedia that is sometimes right, sometimes wrong, and sometimes illiterate?"

During yesterday's broadcast of On Point, host Tom Ashbrook discussed Wikipedia with founder Jimmy Wales and fielded some pointed questions about its reliability. During the show, Ashbrook played an excerpt from the 31 July 2006 broadcast of The Colbert Report in which Steve Colbert's segment on THE WØRD introduces wikiality--a special kind of truthiness in which reality becomes whatever we agree upon. Here's the Colbert segment--we believe it summarizes the problems Wikipedia presents for academic work.

UPDATE: Satire--Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence, from The Onion. --added 06Aug06 by ms.dsk

How to Succeed in College by Really Trying

". . . in academic achievement it is self-discipline, not talent, that counts."

Academically, the tortoise--not the hare--is going to be the winner.

A study by American researchers published last December in Psychological Science confirms that a student's self-discipline is twice as important as his or her IQ when it comes to predicting academic success. The researchers say, "Underachievement among American youth is often blamed on inadequate teachers, boring textbooks, and large class sizes. We suggest another reason for students falling short of their intellectual potential: their failure to exercise self-discipline."

In response to the study, Cordelia Fine of the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne asks what we can do to improve self-discipline among students. She says we can think of willpower as a "moral muscle" which has limits but which can be strengthened. She says, it is "the moral muscle that is flexing and straining as you keep attention focused on a dry academic article, bite back an angry retort to your boss, or decline a helping of your favourite dessert. And herein lies the problem: these acts of restraint all drain the same pool of mental reserves."

As a result, Fine has two suggestions:

1. Recognize that your ability to exert self-discipline has limits. Healthy eating, for instances, saps the same reserves of self-discipline that you use to tackle your studies. So recognize your limits. At the start of your academic career, if you must lose self-discipline around a package of Oreo cookies in order to exert the self-discipline to complete your research paper, then eat the cookies.
2. Beef up your moral muscle through exercise. Fine says, "By regularly exercising self-restraint and virtue in all areas of life (moral muscle cross-training, we may call it), we will come to resist temptations with the same casual ease with which a world-class athlete sprints to catch a train." In other words, eventually you'll be tossing off research papers without ruining your healthy diet.

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Duckworth, Angela L., and Martin E.P. Seligman. "Self-discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents." Psychological Science 16.12 (Dec. 2005): 939-944. 3 Aug. 2006 ‹http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ j.1467-9280.2005.01641.x›.